


Closer to the Sun

by rose_griffes



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Comfort Sex, F/M, Gen, Resistance, secretly a cylon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_griffes/pseuds/rose_griffes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam after the worlds end (days 1-53 on Caprica)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Some pieces of information from "Resistance" and "The Plan" don't match up, so I'll just claim that any timeline mistakes I made can be attributed to that.

**day one**

It didn't feel real when it happened. Sam was lying on the ground, making a joking remark after Coach had scored in their pickup game. Then he was staring at the clouds forming over the cities in their view from the mountainside: venomous orange and gray expanding over the populated areas.

"This has happened before," he whispered. The words felt like they came from somewhere outside of himself.

He stood with his teammates on the mountainside, staring; in the far distance ships swooped in, strange vessels with unfamiliar silhouettes. Sam came out of the daze first, at least enough to realize that they needed information. He almost wished he hadn't thought of it as they listened to the wireless broadcasts. Nothing but static from Caprica City. Broadcasts from Delphi announced that all other major cities had been nuked and Delphi hit by conventional bombs. A few stations broadcast for an hour or so. _Cylons_ , some of the voices shouted toward the end; then the clank of metal and percussion of bullets. Then nothing.

Barolay cried in Coach's arms; Wheeler tried to convince someone, _anyone_ , that he had to go back to town to find his family--the chaos echoed around him and all Sam knew was that they had to stay together. It was oddly familiar: the sense of loss, cutting ties for survival, holding tight to the few left.

It wasn't until that night that it really hit him. They huddled together in one room of the training camp building--like a litter of puppies, he thought, an idea that amused him for a split second. Half of the team woke up each time they switched guard duty but no one complained. The other half probably wasn't sleeping anyway.

He took his turn outside watching for something. He didn't know what; centurions like the one he'd seen in the museums in Caprica City, maybe. He stared at the sky; overhead the stars twinkled faintly, just as they'd always done when the team came to the mountains for training.

To the south the sky glowed a toxic gray-green. _All of this has happened before_. That feeling of recognition seeped back into his chest as he breathed in the cool air: survivor of destruction. ( _Again_ , that same voice said. _Washed up again on the tide_.)

Sue-Shaun walked past his sentry post, brushing a hand against his shoulder. For a moment he leaned into her, feeling the strength of the bond they'd formed with years of practices and games together.

She moved on to her own post and he was alone again, watching the dark landscape.

  
 **day two**

"We're not going to Caprica City." He said it with his _I'm the team captain_ voice and it worked about as well as it usually did: Wheeler argued. At least no one openly agreed with Wheeler; less division to overcome.

"We need to go to Delphi, get some meds, and find out what's going on." _And find any other survivors and get the frak off this planet_ , he thought. _Must be some kind of way out of here._

After five minutes of argument they agreed, Wheeler begrudgingly accepting the team's decision. It took longer to figure out what to take; finally they all decided to bring everything they thought they could use to the central room and then they would sort through it.

They ended up with a small pile of flashlights, canned foods, and spare clothes. Barolay dictated what would be left out and how to divide up supplies into the backpacks. After Kai found a detailed map of the region Sam and Coach spent their time trying to figure out the best route to Delphi, one that would take them close to medical supplies and weapons.

The whole process took longer than he'd hoped, so they stayed in their training camp, taking comfort in the familiar for the last time. To his surprise, everyone slept in the central room again rather than enjoying the comforts of their beds. Even Kai and Wheeler stayed with them, holding hands as they slept.

  
 **day three**

They stayed together, hiking across the mountains toward Delphi. Sam assigned roles from what he remembered from military movies. Someone to take point--that was a term he knew. Ten Point was the first one to take point, just because it almost made Sam laugh. Almost, until he remembered why they were skulking through forests.

Ten Point turned around and made a gesture to silence them. Everyone crouched down, too scared to make noise. It took a moment for the noises to resolve; then he recognized the sounds of footsteps, _human_ footsteps. He stepped as quietly as he could to Ten Point's position and looked.

Seven men, four women; they wore hunting clothes and carried rifles. Their faces were marked with the same expressions as Sam's teammates the last two days: grief and shock. Gesturing to Ten Point and the rest to stay in place, he stepped out from the tree line, carefully holding his hands in view.

"Hey there," he called. The oldest man pointed his rifle for a second and then lowered it when he got a good look at him.

"Thank the Gods, we thought we were the only ones left alive," one of the women exclaimed.

The oldest man looked at her sharply, then turned back to Sam. "What's your name?" he asked. His tone wasn't hostile, but it wasn't friendly either.

"Sam Anders," he replied.

"From the C-Bucs?" asked one of the other men.

"That's right."

"I'll be damned," said the same man.

Sam waved his teammates into the open as the hunters talked about seeing the C-Bucs play. The conversation stayed on the topic of last season's game for several seconds before reality hit them again.

It was a blow every time he remembered. He felt like he might stagger under the impact.

"You seen 'em?" asked one of the hunters.

"Cylons?" asked Sam. They nodded; he said, "None yet. Just heard their names on the wireless, nothing else."

The hunters exchanged glances. "We were closer to Delphi when the attacks started and there were cylons everywhere," said the tallest of the hunters. Eddins was his name.

"We ran," added his wife Lucy. "I think anyone who didn't run is dead."

After exchanging more information, they decided to combine groups. Eddins and the others knew how to shoot; most of the C-Bucs hadn't even held a gun. Barolay pulled out the regional map and Eddins marked the old military depot. "Right there," he said. "It's been out of use for a year or so, but I think there are still some supplies."

Taking a path leading toward the depot, they came close to cylons twice that same day. That was when Sam figured out that they needed to stay away from paved roads if possible; if they were easy for humans to use, they were easy for the cylons to use.

He posted one of the new guys and two of the C-Bucs as sentry that night; a way to keep both groups feeling like they had someone watching out for them. Barolay curled up near him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, hands gripping her biceps. Her eyes were closed, but Sam saw tears slipping from under her lids; faint trails down her face caught the glow from the night sky. He put his arms around her, palms flat against her back. Sliding his hands up and down in a soothing motion, Sam felt the bones of her spine, the muscles; Barolay's breath caught for a moment and she buried her face against his chest. Her tears dampened the front of his shirt and her hair tickled his chin.

Finally she took a shuddering breath and then pulled away, whispering, "Thanks."

He didn't cry; it was all he could do to keep breathing steadily. He felt crushed under the weight of so many deaths, smothered under the responsibility of keeping his teammates alive.

Listening to the sound of Barolay's steady breathing next to him, he finally fell asleep as well.

 _In his dream he's in a lab--_ his _lab. She tells him, "Sam, there's not much time left." His colleagues don't see her even though he can. Her fingers are entwined with his, her breath warm against his arm, but no one else can sense her there. His messenger, his angel._

 _Hurry, she says. We're running out of time..._

  
 **day five:**

Eddins was right about the abandoned depot. They made quick progress after getting the convoy vehicles. The hunters used the additional ammo they'd grabbed to shoot at a small band of centurions they met along the way. It was satisfying to see their metal bodies torn apart, although something about it felt oddly wrong to Sam.

Keeping to the back roads, they finally made it to Delphi Union High School. He'd never heard of it, but Barolay knew about it from when she played for Delphi Legion. She'd made a promotional visit there once and remembered its isolated location. Seemed as good a spot as any to stay for a few days while they scouted out Delphi, looked for more survivors, and tried to find some way out.

Sam divided up most of the team to check the building and sent the hunters to keep guard around the perimeter. He stayed with them, watching the one road leading into the school.

"We got some survivors here!" Morris announced, sounding both shaky and triumphant. He led out a group of people from the central entrance; they looked stunned. Maybe it was seeing so many other people alive--their group had only eight, Sam counted. _So young_ , he noticed. They had to be high school students, except one older man with close-cropped gray hair.

His name was Bex. "I'm the cross-country coach," he said and then introduced the students left from his team.

They stumbled over each other's words with the excitement of talking to other survivors.

"School was out and we were doing warm-up laps," said one teen.

"We heard something and Coach Bex couldn't get any signal on his phone," added a tall boy. "So Matta climbed up a tree and said she saw these weird clouds--"

"They were bombs!" interrupted the next kid; so it went until the story became clear. Matta was Theresa Matta, a short kid who looked no more than twelve, though she was actually seventeen. Climbing trees was what had saved them at first; she'd spotted the centurions marching onto the campus grounds, shooting all the humans.

Coach Bex had taken his students into the forest; they stayed away for two days. When they returned, they found that there were no survivors left and no bodies. Sam blinked in disbelief when he heard that. Had the centurions taken the bodies?

"This is a good place to stay for now," Bex told them. "They built this place thirty-nine years ago, just after the cylon war, and it's supposed to double as a bomb shelter. That's why it's so far away from town--to keep the children safe," he finished, his tone dark.

After exchanged grim looks with Sam's coach, Bex continued. "There's a well here, and a bunker with some supplies. Lots of useful stuff."

"Sounds like you know the campus pretty well," said Sam.

"I should. I've been teaching here since I mustered out of the military."

That explained the close-cropped hair and the way Bex's students behaved around him. The kids were alive thanks to their coach's direction. _Thank the Gods_ , thought Sam. _Someone who knows what he's doing._

Bex showed them around the campus. The school had enough classrooms for everyone to have their own space, but Bex and Coach agreed to keep people grouped together. Bex already had two adjoining classrooms that he used for his small team, so Sam and his coach assigned the C-Bucs to take the neighboring rooms. Easier to keep everyone safe and within range if, gods forbid, the cylons came back there.

  
 **day six:**

Bex was gone the next morning. One of his students found Sam; the kid was crying and waving a note Bex had written. _Gone to Delphi to find out about my family_ , it said. _Please keep an eye on the kids. Tell them I'll be back soon._

Matta took charge of her classmates in his absence. "Coach Bex said we were gonna fight," she told Sam. It was incongruous hearing those words from someone who looked so young.

"Is that right?" he asked. He didn't want to encourage her, but the C-Bucs and hunters have been talking about it: doing something bigger to disrupt the cylons while they looked for a way out. Lucy and Naylor had shot some centurions while scouting out the area to the west, but maybe they could do more.

Wheeler and Eddins were holed up, going through the school's lab supplies and chemistry textbooks. They wanted to figure out some way to make explosives.

Wiggins taught him how to take apart and reassemble a rifle while they shared sentry duty that evening. Afterwards he returned to his corner of the classroom. Jean gave him a quick smile as he settled next to her. She curled her fingers against his for a moment before turning over again.

  
 **day seven:**

 _Never thought I'd be hanging out with survivalist nuts,_ Sam thought. They didn't seem nearly so crazy now. Naylor and Wiggins had found them while searching for more supermarkets to raid.

Earlier in the day he'd sent Theren and Jo-Man to scavenge for something the cylons would take back to one of their containers. Maybe they could find out what was inside, or just blow up whatever it contained. Finding the survivalists had been just what they needed to finish making plans; they had explosives and the knowledge to use them.

Unfortunately the survivalists didn't have any more experience than the rest of them in planning military-style operations; they were stuck using his idea from an old war movie.

Another movie idea. One more realization of how wrong this all was. _Never thought I'd be wishing for a better film repertoire after the end of the world either_ , he reflected.

  
 **day nine:**

Sentry duty. Tonight that meant standing, staring at the darkness, and picturing their faces. Kai, Coach, Monsy, that new guy whose name Sam couldn't even remember: all dead. Wheeler wounded, still in shock over Kai's death. Ten Point and Jo-Man had volunteered to split Wheeler's sentry duty with theirs.

He hated this: struggling to stay away, feeling guilty about being sleepy when he was one of the lucky ones and still alive. Sam couldn't stop thinking about them. Monsy, hit by a centurion bullet before the op even started; Kai sacrificing herself deliberately to give Coach the chance to get the grenade into the container; then Coach and that other guy struck by fire from one of the cylon raiders.

Naturally he couldn't sleep once he finally got to his cot. Somehow the room was too closed in, the air too still. He felt stifled by it. Sam shifted on his cot as quietly as he could, then finally drifted to sleep.

He woke up from a nightmare less than an hour later. Three a.m., he was wide awake, and suddenly he just had to leave. Grabbing his shoes, he walked barefoot from the classroom to the hallway and then outside, slipping his shoes on in the doorway. Ten Point was far enough away from the building that Sam didn't have to talk; he waved at her and walked away.

It was quiet outside; cooler out here than in the high school. Sam stuck his hands in the pockets of his track pants, breathed the air and thought about Delphi to the south. Maybe he could find his own way off this planet with a ship at one of the airports. Mountains to the north: less radiation, probably no cylons up there. No ships to get off planet, but it wasn't like he knew how to pilot one anyway.

He couldn't decide, but at that moment he knew he wasn't going to stay there.

"What are you doing, T?" Jean stood there, looking curious and worried.

"Shit, Barolay, you scared me."

She shrugged; after a moment she asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, sure," he answered. He cast about for an excuse for being out here. "Just... sick from the anti-radiation meds, you know?"

"Yeah," she said. She rubbed her arms. "You can talk to me, you know. If there's something you want to talk about."

"I know, Jean." He started walking back to the school because he couldn't do it--he couldn't leave if Barolay knew that he was running away.

He didn't sleep at all that night. _Frakking coward_ , he thought as he stared at the classroom ceiling. Even as he thought it, he fought the impulse to leave again.

  
 **day eleven:**

Lucy was an exacting instructor. They were getting pretty good with the guns--at least most of them were. Good enough that he could send a C-Buc out with one of the hunters as they scouted the area in pairs. Too risky to hole up here without knowing what was going on around them.

Now when he couldn't sleep at night, he named all the pieces and functions of each of the rifles and pistols he'd learned how to use.

 _His hands are made of metal. One part of his mind knows that he's dreaming. The other part looks at his new hands with fascination: the slim silver tubes in place of fingers, joints articulated. Instead of fear, he feels a sense of accomplishment as they move._

  
 **day thirteen:**  
"Hey T, got a minute?" Barolay put a hand on his arm as she spoke.

"Yeah," he answered, and followed her as she led them up the stairs to the hall with the science classrooms. She opened the door to the last room before the corner. Inside the room he saw lab tables and stools as well as those desks with built-in chairs that he'd hated as a long-legged teen.

In the corner near the teacher's desk he could see a bedroll, a stack of science textbooks next to it and a flashlight. Barolay's hide-out, he assumed. His was the room with the weaponry; someone had to keep an eye on it, after all.

Sitting on one of the lab tables, Barolay looked at him for a moment, her expression impossible for him to read. "I found some condoms," she stated.

Not what Sam was expecting to hear; he huffed out a breath in surprise.

"I thought we could break all of our rules as teammates," she told him. No need to elaborate; they both knew exactly what kind of unspoken rules she meant. He'd seen enough frakked-up relationships spill over to the team to avoid them. (Even now Wheeler wasn't over Kai's death. Though the 'no frakking my teammates' rule hadn't exactly been designed for _this_ kind of situation.)

He didn't answer right away. It wasn't that he'd never thought of it--of _them_. Cocking his head, he said, "Jean..." trying to give himself a moment to think.

She imitated the gesture and his tone, adding a hint of sarcasm. "Sam." It made him want to laugh; Jean always knew how to cut through his bullshit.

She took a deep breath and said, "I--I just want to stop thinking about how I'm either dying by degrees or moving towards that moment where the cylons kill me." She touched a scratch on his cheek. "I didn't think you'd have so many objections." Her voice was teasing, a graceful concession to allow him to answer no with little awkwardness.

That was what made him say yes. That and she was right; he wanted to forget for just a little while that they were all going to die here.

Sam leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. "No objections," he answered.

He felt rather than saw her smile as he kissed her again. "How d'you want to do this?" he asked her.

"Whatever works," she said--a familiar line from hundreds of pyramid games. "This is a good start," she added, and put her hands on his shoulders. Her lips met his and she deepened the kiss, nibbling on his lower lip. He'd been worried that it would take him some time to get in the mood, but as she moved her mouth along his jawline and licked at the sensitive skin below his ear, his body responded to her enthusiasm.

They stayed there for several minutes, her perched on the lab table, him standing between her legs. Sam explored what made her react: his lips against her neck, trailing his fingertips along the inside of her arms, licking her ear. He tried his best to meet her goal: no thinking.

Part of him couldn't stop thinking, though. _I'm sorry I tried to run_ , he wanted to say. Instead he traced regrets into her skin with fingers and lips.

Suddenly she tightened her legs around his waist and said, "I want you to carry me over there and frak me right now."

"Always running my plays for me," he quipped; she laughed as he grabbed her and carried her to the bedroll. She was heavier than he was used to for a woman her size; all that muscle from years of competition. They grinned at each other as they fumbled over who would be on top.

She played dirty and won that round. What surprised him wasn't how vocal she was; it was that she stayed so close after, curled up in his arms. For a moment he could believe that there was nothing else, that they're just two old friends and the world hadn't ended and they hadn't spent the last two weeks watching its death spiral.

Drawing light lines across his chest, she pushed at the short hairs there with her fingertips. Her face was concentrated; watching her, Sam could see her mood shift from light to dark from as the world caught back up to them. He tugged lightly on her hair, freeing the last strands from a now-messy ponytail.

"Hey," he said. "Why don't you take a nap before it's time for sentry duty?"

She gave him a skeptical look, shrugged and laid her head against his chest. Sam guessed that she didn't expect to sleep any, but she did.

Muscles relaxed, Sam let himself fall asleep as well.

 _He blinks; his body feels_ wrong _somehow. Like it's not his, even though he recognizes the shape of his hands, his knobby knees. He's sitting in what looks like a large tub filled with sticky fluid; in the distance he hears both metal clanking and human footsteps._

 _It's all wrong: his body, the shape of the metal centurion's helmet as it moves into view. The man walking with it is wearing a hat, his face shadowed by its brim._

 _"Where am I?" he asks. His lungs seize for a moment after speaking; they don't feel like_ his _lungs and it hurts to breath._

 _The man with the hat smiles; Sam can see the flash of teeth, even though he can't see the details of the man's face. "It's called a resurrection tank. But you're not going to remember that, just like you don't remember anything else that actually matters."_

 _He knows that voice somehow; his stomach roils and he takes quick shallow breaths to keep the nausea at bay._

 _"Father Sam," the man says. His voice is anything but respectful even though he uses a title in front of Sam's name. "You have so much to learn. And I'm going to make sure you get the chance to see the error of your ways."_

 _The centurion steps closer, the red eye sensor moving back and forth and Sam scrabbles for a grip on the edge of the tank so he can move away, but his hands are slippery..._

He woke with a gasp. Barolay stirred briefly; his hands were tangled in her hair.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice raspy.

"Nothing, just a bad dream." He loosened his fingers from the red strands. "Go back to sleep," he whispered. "We still have time before duty."

The details of the dream were already slipping away. Instead of staying curled at his side, Barolay rolled over and grabbed another condom. "Sleep is boring," she said, her eyes gleaming in the dusky light, and he forgot about the dream entirely.

  
 **day fourteen:**

"Don't put anything on or in the ground around here that you wouldn't want to drink later," Matta announced. She and Sue-Shaun were leading the group of new people around the school, Matta acting as tour guide and explaining the rules. Campers--college-aged--and they'd survived the two weeks since the attacks on their own. They had to be useful, right? That was what he hoped, at any rate.

He was constantly scared of frakking this up. Bex hadn't returned; not that Sam had expected it, but some part of him had hoped. Eight days later and he'd stopped hoping.

Somehow they managed anyway; Sue-Shaun and Jo-Man kept an eye on the high school kids, though Matta kept them in line pretty well. The hunters and survivalists hadn't come to blows, even though they didn't work too well together.

He knew they could find things to do, ways to disrupt the cylons in Delphi, if only they knew what the cylons were doing there. Could be just a matter of time and spying in the right areas. What he couldn't figure out was how to get this band of survivors out of here. As far as he could tell, the closest ships would be between Delphi and Caprica City, and that whole area would be crawling with cylons. Not to mention a whole lot more radioactive than this place.

Where would they even go if they could fly away from here? That was the question he avoided asking, because he didn't know. What little they had heard was enough to make him believe that the other colonies had experienced the same thing. At any rate, no other colonies had sent any rescue ships to Caprica that he knew of. It was enough of an answer.

"This is where we're gonna build a pyramid court," Matta said as led the group past him again. She looked pointedly at him as she said it. Maybe it was time to go ahead and do that instead of just talking about it.

His turn for sentry duty on the roof. He went inside, grabbed a rifle, and jogged up the stairs.

  
 **day fifteen:**

His first time to send just C-Bucs on recon, no hunters or survivalists paired up with them. Him and Jean--not by accident, either. They drove the pickup truck to their starting point and started walking.

Each recon team took a map of the area, checked the details and added in whatever else was pertinent. Today he and Jean were a few miles southeast of the high school, close to where the city actually started.

"I think that stream is this line on the map," she told him. Their shoes were covered with mud from crossing it.

"No, I think we're farther east than that."

"No, we're not. It's only been fifteen minutes since we passed that water tower."

"Shit, you're right," he said. He penciled in _muddy stream_ across the thin line on the map.

"Going to have to head back soon," Jean told him. "It's getting late."

"Yeah," he said. Digging through his pockets, he held out a condom. "Want to use this before we head back?"

Jean laughed, a bright sound in the dim light. "So that's why you were sneaking up to that classroom," she said.

"A man's gotta hope."

"You're on notice for stealing my condoms," she told him, lowering her voice in a teasingly menacing tone.

"Wanna play a game?" he asked. She looked at him, questioning. Stripping off most of his clothes, he used them as groundcover, lying on his back.

"I like it already," Jean told him, a small smile crossing her face.

"You get to play with anything above here," he said, pointing to the waistline of the briefs he'd left on. "I won't move."

She narrowed her eyes. "And?"

"Whoever makes the other one scream first, wins."

"That's your game?" she asked, laughing.

"Yup."

"Okay, then." She straddled him at the waist, her track suit making a rustling noise; he put his hands behind his head.

Palms flat across his abs, Jean slid her fingers upward, tracing the lines of muscles as she went.

"So I used to imagine what it would be like if we frakked after games," he said casually. Her fingers paused for a moment.

"I'd follow you into the shower and press you against the wall." Her breath catching, Jean glanced at his eyes, then looked back at his chest.

"I'd start by licking your neck and you would taste like salt." He continued talking, watching her reactions while she tried to stay focused on making _him_ react.

She blushed as he talked about removing pieces of her uniform. Pushing past that, she moved her lips to the sensitive skin of his ear.

She squeaked quietly when he talked about peeling off her underwear and what he would do then--a sound so unlike the Jean he knew that he wanted to laugh. Instead he carefully kept his face neutral.

Sam lost his own train of thought moments later when she gently bit the underside of his bicep. Her chest was plastered to his and her ass was pressed against his erection; _cheating_ , he thought. He'd noticed how she'd wriggled back just far enough earlier. She sat up again and rocked back. He let out a moan before he managed to collect his thoughts.

He started talking again, whispering, waiting until he had her full attention. Then he quickly brought up his knees to her back to push her forward against him.

Jean shrieked in surprise at their sudden movement, catching herself with her hands on the ground just above his shoulders.

"I win," he said.

"What? That's cheating," she declared.

He thought about arguing over who had started the cheating; instead he said, "Okay, _you_ win. Can you take off your clothes now?"

Without hesitating, she stood and removed her clothes while he watched. He slid off his briefs and reached for the condom, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself. He let her put it on him and straddle him again.

She stayed on top of him afterward, lying on his chest, her face buried in the curve at his neck and shoulders; he rubbed her back for a moment, trying to avoid thinking about what they would have to face next. He would freeze this moment if he could: no cylons right now, no voices asking for direction, no eyes looking to him for help.

"We really need to head back," she finally said.

"Yeah," he said. Already sundown; the wind was changing direction, the air turning cooler.

Sam finished getting dressed first, so he pulled the crumpled map out from under her backpack and started refolding it.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

"What?"

"That crackling noise," she answered.

He stopped folding the map and stood still to listen. They both reacted at the same time when the smell hit them.

"Gods, what is that?" whispered Jean.

They quietly finished packing up their gear, then walked toward where they thought the smell and noise originated, carefully checking the view every few steps. As they approached the top of the ridge, they started to crawl, edging along until they could see what was below.

Like a scene from hell, thought Sam. A brightly-lit hell; lights powered by a generator blazed over yellow and orange flames. A man wearing a blue jumpsuit drove a small bulldozer; he was pushing human bodies into a pile--flesh as fuel for the fire. So many bodies; they didn't move except when pushed by the machine, but the flickering light consuming them made them look like they were fighting to get away.

He thought he was going to pass out from the stench of decay and burning flesh.

More men used shovels to push bits and pieces into the larger pile and then Sam saw it: those men were all the same height. They had the same dark hair, the same sharp features. At least five of them, all identical.

Next to him Jean gasped.

"Shh," he whispered, pulling her down and against his chest to keep her quiet.

"All alike," she said. "T, they gotta be cylons." Her voice trembled.

"Frakkers look like us now," he whispered, his head next to hers. "Listen to me," he continued, pressing his lips to her temple for a second when she gasped again. "We have to get out of here, okay?" He looked over her head, in the direction their truck was parked. "You need to be very quiet. Okay?"

She took several quick breaths. "Alright?" he asked. She nodded her head. "Just follow me out." He pulled them both down, took a step down the ridge and stretched out his hand to her. They stumbled through the darkness until they were far enough away to risk turning on a flashlight.

It seemed like hours before they found the path leading back to the truck. Neither of them spoke during the drive back to Delphi Union High. Jean pulled her feet onto the bench seat, legs curled against her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Sam drove as fast as he dared on the dirt road.

Cylons. Human-looking cylons.

It was another sleepless night after they told the others the news.

  
 **day seventeen:**

It was their first time to shoot at something that could bleed. The human-looking cylons were just as vulnerable to bullets as actual humans. More vulnerable than metal; good to know. Sam tallied up the numbers from the mission as their convoy truck rattled on the dirt roads: seven of those human-looking cylons dead, no casualties in their own group, one person saved. The priest had yelled from the pile of bodies; after that they had fanned out, hoping to find more survivors, but the only movement was from the flames.

They buried the bodies before leaving. Not the cylons, though. They dragged their bodies to the road leading into the gravesite, a message for who or what might come to check on the site.

When they got back to the high school, they were greeted with cheers and high-fives. Sam sat in the truck a moment longer, listening to the priest--Cavil--talk about humanity's sins. There was something familiar about it; he was probably remembering the priests from his childhood.

"Do you hear confessions?" he asked Brother Cavil.

"I can, yes, certainly I can."

"Good. We'll talk later." Sam wanted to tell someone about almost running away. Had that really been only a week ago? It seemed longer than that.

 **day twenty**

More new arrivals; first thing his group did was check for _that_ face. The vacationers from west of Delphi did the same thing, only they were looking for a female.

"I have a picture,"said a woman from the new group. She held up a ripped photo--the woman remaining in it had white-blonde hair and thin features, like a model. Someone's arm was around her, but that part of the photo was torn away.

"She called herself Calixa," said the woman, "And she said she didn't like having her picture taken." The woman shrugged in a self-deprecating way. "I felt bad about making her take the picture then."

"Frak, frak, frak!" said Sue-Shaun, her voice rising with each swear word. They'd talked about the possibility of other varieties of human-cylons, but without proof, it was a possibility they hadn't wanted to face.

"That was my reaction, too," said the woman. When Sam started to hand her the picture again she told him, "I don't want it."

He put it in his jacket pocket; he needed to show it to the rest of his team anyway.

  
 **day twenty-three**

Sue-Shaun woke him to tell him the news. "Wheeler's dead," she said.

Sam blinked; his brain still felt fuzzy, even though whatever he'd been dreaming had faded. "Wheeler?" he finally said. "But he wasn't sick." That was the first thought that popped into his head. Something had been going around; Dinard and Mickell were still in their make-shift infirmary with whatever it was.

Sue-Shaun sat on the ground next to his cot, leaning against the metal frame. "Doc says it was suicide," she told him.

"What--how..."

"Morpha overdose. He must've stolen some from Doc last time he had his leg checked."

"Shit," said Sam, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah," she agreed. She turned her head to look at him. "Barolay found him."

"Oh gods," he muttered. Kai, Wheeler and Barolay had been close; Jean had been the one to comfort Wheeler after Kai's death.

He dressed and went to look for Cavil. After talking to the priest about a quick ceremony, he found Jean crouched by the pyramid court they'd built.

He sat next to her; she glanced at him and went back to fiddling with the pyramid ball in her hands.

"Hey," he said. "I'm sorry."

She screwed up her face and didn't say anything at first. "One more thing they've taken away," she finally told him.

He looked questioningly at her.

"The cylons," she clarified. "I'm done crying over the things the cylons have taken away."

"Jean..." he started.

She tossed him the pyramid ball. "Don't," she told him. "I can't take any more sorries right now." She put her hand on his shoulder in her own form of wordless apology and walked away.

  
 **day twenty-nine**

Since turning pro he hadn't smoked a cigarette. Seemed pointless to resist the lure of nicotine now. Sam watched the smoke curl upward. More poison added to the lethal air, he mused.

They were in the outskirts of Delphi, raiding supermarkets and houses: a team to grab food and others to keep lookout. Sam would rather do the second job; even though there weren't any dead humans left here, the inside of the buildings stank from the rotting food.

"There's another one," said Sue-Shaun, pointing. Another dead bird on the city street. Naylor told them about the birds' migration patterns taking them over Caprica City. Apparently the radiation exposure was just enough to weaken them; by the time they got to Delphi they were sick and close to death. Delphi's cleaner air couldn't save them. The smaller birds died first and then the larger ones that preyed on them. Reason enough to avoid hunting live game for food.

One time they'd found a raptor sick but still alive, thrashing on the forest floor, feathers coming loose from its wings. Jo-Man had cried; Jean wordlessly dispatched it with the knife she now carried everywhere.

Sam took another turn around the neighborhood, walking quietly back to where Sue-Shaun stood with her rifle. Their conversation turned back to the skinjobs. Sue-Shaun said, "I get that looking like us lets them blend in. But still--they could have used some imagination."

Sam thought of those they've identified: the woman with the white-blonde hair, the brunette with the doe eyes, the sharp-faced short man... each so familiar, though he couldn't say why. Probably just seeing the same faces over and over again.

"Like what?" Sam asked her.

"I dunno. Wings, maybe. Wings'd be cool."

"Yeah, but if you kept the human form, you'd have to have wings that were four times longer than the human body. Maybe more."

Sue-Shaun looked at him, her expression quizzical.

" 'Cause we're too heavy. Birds have hollow bones. At least the ones that fly do."

She laughed. "Okay, nerd," she said.

"It's physics!" he insisted, half-arguing, half-laughing.

"Physics," she repeated. "You and physics." Her face had a small grin.

They separated briefly to check for movement again; when they stood together once more she said, "We're going to have to catch one."

"A bird?" he asked, and then he realized what she meant. No need to look at Sue-Shaun to know what expression she would have on her face now. He winced dramatically.

"Dumbass," she told him, chuckling at his mistake. "One of those skinjobs. We need to know what they want with Delphi."

She was right, but his stomach turned at the thought of it. Capturing one, torturing it for information... once he would have believed there were lines he would never cross. Now he was planning where they could set up the interrogation. Not at the high school; somewhere within Delphi that wouldn't give away their home base.

Matta, Jo-Man, Lucy and Crip-Key jogged over, carrying bags of food. "That one had _lots_ of ice cream," said Matta, wrinkling her nose.

Sue-Shaun groaned. Aside from meat, ice cream created the worst stench as it melted and decayed.

They put the bags into the convoy truck and then continued to the next houses. Sue-Shaun walked up and down the street again, looking carefully for any other movement.

 _This_ was grocery shopping now.

 _He dreams he's a bird. The pieces shift--first he's an eagle, then a man with wings, but whichever it is, his feathers drop and he falls, landing and dying on the forest floor._

 _Then he's himself, or at least something that looks like himself, picking up the dead bird and promising to make it a new body, and then he's the bird again, inside a body of metal, his eyes glowing red._

 _He tries to escape but he falls again, dying once more on the forest floor, the light from his electronic eyes dimming._

  
 **day thirty-three:**

"Did Turner ever tell you about that blonde cylon?" asked Jean. She squinted at the line of empty food cans they'd put up for target practice. Barolay was a better shot than him--more diligent in practicing with the different weapons. Not that he was going to admit it to her anytime soon.

"Yeah," he said. Turner was the one who had brought in the photo of the blonde female cylon. Turned out the cylon had gotten close to her because Turner had helped design some of the buildings in Caprica City.

"So I've been thinking," said Jean. "Something that the priest told me. He said my problem was that I didn't have anything left to hope for."

"Okay." Sounded a bit pessimistic for a priest, but Sam figured they had reason enough for that.

"They were made to look like us, they infiltrated us, they..." She squeezed the trigger in quick succession, knocking down the line of cans. "Here's the thing. Someone had to make them. Maybe the military, maybe--I don't know who. But someone somewhere thought it was a good idea."

"Right," he said, not sure what she was going to say next.

She put the handgun back into the duffel bag and pulled out a rifle, attaching a spotting scope. "If I live to get out of here, I'm going to look for that person," she said. "Something to hope for."

Jean smiled and lifted the rifle up to her shoulder.

  
 **day thirty-eight**

He wanted to push his fingers through his hair, wanted to pace, wanted to shove all the maps and other papers from the library table to the floor.

He wanted a frakking cigarette. Instead Sam explained the details of the plan to his team, choosing his words carefully, staying calm.

It was the best they could think of; they'd been working on it for four days. Lucy and Ten Point had sent teams to keep the Delphi building under surveillance, making sure the op would still matter when it was time to go.

"Okay, so Eddins and Jo-Man will set the explosives, then Matta goes in with Tune-Up. Ren and Kauer, you cover them."

Matta tried not to smile as he said her name; she didn't succeed very well. Gods, when he was seventeen... okay, when he was seventeen, he would've thought it was cool to be blowing things up too. Didn't change the fact that he hated sending her and Kauer on this op.

After he finished talking, Sue-Shaun took over, drilling each of them about the plan until they could repeat it without looking at the notes. They scattered after that, some to practice their roles, others to let off some steam before tomorrow.

Jo-Man and Hillard started a pick-up game; Sam watched with Barolay, the two of them passing a cigarette back and forth.

Matta walked up to them. "Did you know it was my birthday last week?" she asked Sam.

"No," he answered.

"I just thought--well, 'cause you're letting me go on this op and maybe it was because I'm eighteen now."

Jean glanced at Sam, a flash of an unreadable expression on her face. "Happy birthday, kid," she said. Somehow Jean made the comment sarcastic without being mean.

Theresa laughed, said thanks and then sat next to Jean.

Sam thought of what he wanted to say--things like _Rally talked me into this_ , and _Don't be in such a hurry to do grown-up things._ Instead he listened to the familiar ring of the pyramid ball hitting against metal and to Matta and Barolay talk about Hillard's defensive game.

Jean passed him the cigarette one last time; he took a final drag, then ground it out under his heel.

"I don't know how you can do that to yourselves," said Matta. "It's so bad for you."

"In case the cylons miss," Jean told her. Theresa laughed again; Sam didn't.

  
 **day thirty-nine**

Jean found him before he started to cry. He was huddled in the corner of the classroom; she sat next to him but didn't say anything.

The silence blanketed the room like a shroud. Her face was expressionless in the dim light; only Jean's eyes showed what they'd been through.

"I should've made a better plan," he finally said. Speaking the words made a crack through the facade; he curled up tighter than before, legs pulled into his chest like he could disappear into himself. Rubbing his face with the heels of his hands, he felt like his brain was short-circuiting; words kept spilling out of him with the tears.

"We should've gone up higher into the mountains. They didn't have to die." His sentences were punctuated with the sobs he couldn't hold back. "We could've all lived if we hadn't fought back."

The list went on and on of what he'd done wrong and all he could see were the dead bodies of those kids. _They had just been kids_ and now they were dead. "I should've run away that time, and then no one would've gotten hurt.

"I should've--it should've been--"

"Shut up," Jean hissed at him. The sound was loud enough to startle him into doing just what she said.

"Don't say it," she said. "Don't say you should've stopped them. You helped give them the only thing we have left."

He stared at her blankly.

"The only thing we have left here is to make our deaths count for something."

Sam takes a shuddering breath and tried to think of something to say, but she continued talking.

"Don't you dare say not to do that. And _don't you dare_ say it should've been you."

"I'm sorr--"

"And don't say that you're sorry, either!" she interrupted. Even in the dim light he could see that her face was red.

They looked at each other without saying anything for a moment, both of them breathing hard. Finally she said, "But you don't have to stop crying."

He blinked twice. "I think you yelled it out of me," he told her.

She let out a shaky laugh. "Sam," she said. For someone who had sworn not to cry anymore, she looked close to it. She scooted closer and leaned against him. He put his head against hers and breathed.

Even with her next to him, he felt abandoned, hollow.

Jean kept her word and didn't cry. Instead she wrapped her arms around his chest and held on tightly. They sat like that in the quiet room; through the walls of Delphi Union High he heard the faint buzz of the others--the cries of dismay, the angry voices as the news spread.

Sam buried his head in the crook of her neck. She smelled like sweat and smoke. Holding her so close, recognizing her smell... Jean was warm and alive and he felt hollow.

Rather than say anything, he turned to slide her to the floor. At his movement, she raised her head, a questioning look on her face. So he kissed her; his fingers tunneled through her hair, undoing her ponytail. He didn't think about what she needed, but she responded anyway, grabbing his shoulders, moving until she was straddling him, shifting her hips and grinding against him.

It wasn't like before, both of them trying to keep balance with their friendship. No laughter, no smiles; instead she marked him, scraping her nails across his chest, sucking and biting bruises into his neck.

"No condoms here," she gasped, the words vibrating against his throat. "Let me..." Her hands slid down his chest, fingers untying the knot of his trousers.

They left on most of their clothes; he came with Jean's hands wrapped around his erection, his hands trembling on her shoulders. After he caught his breath again he pulled her into his lap, pushing her shirt and bra out of the way, his mouth moving across her breasts. Shoving her panties aside, he worked his fingers between her legs, pressing deep. Sam knew the sounds Jean made when she was close; he pulled back and watched her face as she climaxed. Her eyes fluttered closed; the skin of her face was flushed. She looked like an avenging goddess calling down her wrath, her expression fierce.

The room was warm and their skin slick with sweat but Sam shivered as he looked at her. She didn't pull away from him but she held herself in a different way; instead of sated and sleepy, she looked ready to reach for her gun. Lines bracketed her mouth that hadn't been there before. More than a month; they'd all lost pieces of themselves that weren't coming back. The Jean curled up in his arms wasn't the woman he had known before. He might never see her again before the buzzer sounded game over.

It wasn't until later that he realized Jean might have the same thoughts about him.

  
 **day forty-six**

The skinjob they found wearing a Colonial uniform had led them to it. Maybe it had been trying to play a trick or set up some kind of ambush, but it didn't matter; Sam's team had some shiny new toys. The armory was full of weapons; some things they didn't even know how to use yet, but they would figure it out.

Naylor whooped when he saw the charges and detonators. "Hell, yeah," he shouted.

"Happy late Solstice," Sam said. They unloaded the trucks and carried the supplies inside. Lucy and Naylor started pulling out diagrams from the boxes and arguing over which pieces they would use next, and what target to choose.

Sam knew what he wanted to go after next: the convoy of cylons that went through west Delphi most evenings. An easy target; with the right explosives, his team wouldn't even have to get within shooting range to start the damage.

They spent the afternoon practicing with the new weaponry, teaching each other what they figured out. It reminded Sam of days spent planning tactics for Pyramid games and knowing they'd take the opposing team by surprise.

It was a good day.

  
 **day fifty**

He didn't have time yet to think about who was gone; all he could do was help those who've gotten this far to get back on their convoy truck. Jo-Man helped him lift Hillard while Sue-Shaun leaped up to give Jean a hand.

After getting Hillard into the truckbed, he jumped down again to help the rest of his team into the truck, then climbed back in and hit the back of the cabin to signal it was time to leave.

Hillard groaned at Sam's feet. Sue-Shaun passed the med kit to Sam; he grabbed wipes, bandages and scissors and started cutting the bottom of Hillard's trousers to examine the bullet wound. Catching a glimpse of one the syringes containing the anti-radiation serum, Sam blinked at the thought that crossed his mind: _the meds will last longer with fewer people._ They'd already swiped all they could find from both hospitals in Pilgrim Bay.

Hillard took quick, shallow breaths; they'd all learned how to move with pain from years of training, but this took it to another level. Sam looked at the wound; the bullet hadn't come in contact with the bone and it was a clean entrance and exit. He carefully cleaned it and applied pressure.

Glancing at Barolay, he saw that her eyes were closed, face pale, a scrape running across her clavicle. "She gonna be okay?" he said to Sue-Shaun.

" _She_ can still talk," snapped Jean.

Sam smiled in relief. "Whatcha got?" he asked.

"Bruises. Sprained ankle. Same one as before," she told him.

He looked at the blood spattered across her clothes. "Any of that yours?"

She shook her head. Sam didn't ask anything else; so much blood spilled today. He wondered how the other teams had fared; no knowing the answer to that until they got back to base. Theren had the walkie-talkie and Sam already knew that Theren hadn't made it. A centurion had torn him to pieces.

The truck jolted over the ground. Sam's arm hurt; looking down, he saw a cut on his lower bicep and a tear across the front of his shirt. A shallow scrape covered most of his stomach.

He didn't know how he'd gotten them.

  
 **day fifty-three**

 _He dreams that he's flying to the sun: Icarus with wings of metal and rivets rather than feathers and wax._ This shouldn't work _, he thinks, but somehow it does and he's not scared of falling. The metal wings arc and bend as he flexes his arms; he sees bolts fastened through the palms of his hands, connecting them to the metal struts. Escaping from one world to find another kind of imprisonment, yet it doesn't hurt and doesn't feel like bondage. It's a last destination: one final mission before freedom._

 _He pushes hard, reveling in the movement. Below he sees ruined cities; they crumble and blow away into dust as he watches. Green life floods across the landscape. Cities rise again, first small and fire-lit, then bigger and glowing with artificial light. Even as he floats higher, the cities grow with the thrum of humanity._

 _The metal binding him is gone and his arms are real wings, covered in white feathers, and he's still not afraid. He looks to the sun and knows that she's waiting there, golden in the light, his angel in the sun and in the earth..._

Sam drifts awake, surprised as always by how silent his world was without the constant hum of electricity.

When Sue-Shaun calls in on the walkie-talkie to report new potential skinjobs--a shorter blonde woman and a tall dark-haired man--he takes Brother Cavil with him, along with Doc Simon. Maybe the priest would remember their faces from when he was hauled to the mass grave.

Brother Cavil says that he might've seen them before; while he's talking, Sam remembers flying in his dream that morning; the skin of his shoulder blades prickles for a second with the sense-memory, then it fades.

"Another one of her and maybe him," continues Cavil.

Sue-Shaun says, "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

He orders Cavil and Doc to hang back and tells his team what to do.

 _Something big is gonna happen_ , he thinks, though he doesn't know why. It's just another day on a dead planet and there are more toasters to plug. Getting ready to walk into the clearing, Sam checks one more time that his weapon is loaded.


End file.
